Browsing Blog

The Pope announced a Holy Year beginning on Dec. 8, 2015. Published here are sections of the Papal degree : “Misericordiae Vultus” - “The Face of Mercy” - which formally announced the theme and reason for the Holy Year. Here is the 7th installment:

The Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person. In the present day, as the Church is charged with the task of the new evangelization, the theme of mercy needs to be proposed again and again with new enthusiasm and renewed pastoral action. It is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy. Her language and her gestures must transmit mercy, so as to touch the hearts of all people and inspire them once more to find the road that leads to the ... Read More »

The event of Pentecost draws our attention to “a Church which surprises,” since a fundamental element of Pentecost is surprise. Our God is the God of surprises, we know. No-one expected anything more from the disciples: ... Read More »

From the homily preached at gathering of families from Rome on July 2, 1014

"Joseph, Mary and Jesus experience the dramatic condition of life as refugees, full of fear, uncertainty, and discomfort. Unfortunately, in our times, millions of families can identify with this ... Read More »

Fraternity is an essential human quality, for we are relational beings. A lively awareness of our relatedness helps us to look upon and to treat each person as a true sister or brother; ... Read More »

According to the biblical account of creation, all people are descended from common parents, Adam and Eve, the couple created by God in his image and likeness, to whom Cain and Abel were ... Read More »

I would like to look at Mary as the image and model of the Church. I will do so by taking up an expression of the Second Vatican Council. The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church states: "As St Ambrose taught, the Mother ... Read More »

Today I speak about a very beautiful reality: the "communion of saints". The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that two realities are meant by this expression: communion 'in holy things' and 'among holy persons' (n. 948). I wish to pause on the second meaning. ... Read More »